Lomo Diana Camera Produces Crummy (Artistic) Images

The Diana camera was a really cheap plastic camera that was made by the Great Wall Plastic Factory in Hong Kong in the 1960s. At the time, it was just that, a piece of junk. But over the years artists have discovered that the crummy little camera’s flaws ended up producing some really dreamy imagery.

Loaded with light leaks, and a propensity to shoot slightly out-of-focus images, the camera shoots on glorious old 120 roll film. No megapixels or flash memory here. Just cool, artsy-fartsy photos.

The original Diana went out of production over 25 years ago. So to bring back the magic to a whole new generation of artists, the gurus at Lomography have dusted off the original camera design and are starting to manufacture Dianas all over again. They’ve added a couple of tweaks to the original, including a 4 F-stop settings and removable lens for pinhole shots, but otherwise the cameras look remarkably unchanged.

Set to ship this October, Unica Home is taking pre-orders now for the $50 “new” Diana camera.